While economic experts such as Ben Bernanke of the Federal Reserve System have proclaimed the Great Recession over, many people feel that such conclusions are premature.

The Dow Jones average is substantially higher than in July, financial institutions seem stabilized generally, and productivity is up. But the history of recessions is not so sanguine. Historically, the last index to be set aright is the critical issue of employment.

The ranks of the unemployed are supposedly at 10 percent, but if one includes those who have given up looking for a job, those working part-time when they would rather be working full-time, and those living in the underground economy, the rate is surely much higher and more persistent.

The chief stimulus packages have had little impact on unemployment, except perhaps in the automotive business. Modest projections are that employment will not pick up for another year at best. Some more pessimistic views, such as those in the Newsweek review of employment, argue that many traditional jobs are gone forever in America.

President Obama has touted the employment opportunities that will come from the new "green" economy, but those positions are rarely seen on the immediate horizon, and many are more likely to involve retraining the currently employed. The delayed transmission from old jobs to new "green" ones is really not attractive to those on the unemployment lines. Even the retooling being done in community colleges is not resulting in long-lasting jobs.

In our battle against recession, many observers have looked back to the lessons of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal. The New Deal provided not just relief and an unemployment security net, but national programs that restructured the nation’s infrastructure. The Roosevelt Administration provided jobs for young men in the Civil Conservation Corps, and millions of blue-collar jobs in the Public Works Administration and the Works Progress (Projects) Administration, commonly known as the WPA.

In a nation that was heavily agricultural and extensively devoted to manufacturing and physical labor, the make-work strategies provided for a living wage, a sense of self-respect, and beneficial changes in America’s physical plant. We are still the beneficiaries of its bridges, roads, libraries, and town halls.

When the WPA was created, President Roosevelt was asked what to do with creative people, like artists, poets, and historians. His response was simple – put them in the WPA too. After all, he observed, they have to eat too. From those pragmatic decisions the nation gained murals, folk story collections, and state and regional histories that are still part of our cultural life.

But the economy has changed, and so has the nation. Since the 1950s, the United States has become a white collar economy with more people in managerial positions or in bureaucratic posts in private industries. The only area where organized labor has increased has been in government positions in teaching and the civil service. The unemployment strategies being used do not take into account the huge numbers of white-collar workers, who are unprotected by labor agreements, and who are so-called "at will" appointees.

The president’s agenda for change must re-adjust itself to create jobs for older, white-collar workers. The federal government, which has supported so many institutions and now is considering even tax breaks for newspapers, will have to undergird the creation of a new type of WPA.

Many white-collar workers can be used in the growth industries that we have already and that are people-oriented. For example, the nation is heavily investing in medical care and in elder care.

But anyone who has been hospitalized for a long time knows that patients desperately need hospital or nursing home advocates. Nurses and attendants often overlook the care or even the medications of those in their charge. There needs to be more individualized attention to the conditions and complaints of those so disabled. Alert, management-oriented people could be easily retrained to be such.

Also, there are students in schools who could use more attention in science and mathematics. Since many-white collar people utilized these skills in their high-echelon jobs, they could easily become tutors to the next generation.

There are hosts of other jobs that society can benefit from more than simply extended unemployment compensation.

People want to work, to contribute, to be a part of an ongoing enterprise. It is indeed time to put Americans back to work, not just on laying roads but in white-collar work for which so many were once proudly trained.

Michael P. Riccards is executive director of the Hall Institute of Public Policy-New Jersey, a think tank based in Trenton.